ANDROGOGICAL MEASURES TO IMPROVE EMPLOYABILITY OF ENGINEERING GRADUATES

Engineering Education in India is passing through turbulent times. It is seen that since 2018 the admissions for core branches such as Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Electrical Engineering is quite less compared to Computer Science and Engineering . Currently the supply of seats in engineering institutes exceeds the demand of seats. Institutions are unable to cope up with this sudden change and have reduced their intake in core branches or have altogether gone for closure of these branches over the last four years. Employability is one of the critical component for admissions. As the economy of nations boomed the demand for automation in manufacturing, use of Artificial Intelligence, machine learning has taken a quantum jump and the major IT companies over India had large hiring in these four years. In this work, the issues faced about employability of engineering graduates have been viewed from androgogical perspective and brainstorming was conducted with the stakeholders to arrive at the various issues ahead and the way to address the same. 26 measures were suggested by the various stakeholders be in alumni, parents, employers, training organizations, faculties. Google form was sent to the faculty members to solicit their opinion on the 26 points and Lickert scale of 1-5 rating was used to get the responses. Responses for 40 respondents (covering 6 Indian states) are analysed and the results are quite similar. 90% respondents agree that setting of new high tech labs and training for skill development, placement opportunities (Robotics, 3D Printing, Total Station QGIS, Revit, Sketch up), Functional MoUs with industries can help improve employability (with 70 % strongly agreeing). 90% respondents agree that finding out good sincere students (10-20%) i.e. segregation and grooming them in their field of interest, future plans can improve the knowledge, skill, attitude (KSA) for employment (with 50% strongly agreeing). 90% respondents agree that Self discipline /self management among students, attendance in college and responsibility in learning impact KSA of students (with 50% strongly agreeing). These responses are indicative that institutions need to align themselves in the changing times to make their students employable